Thursday, 15 July 2010

I'm far away, right now, sitting in a hotel room in Vicenza, northern Italy. Posting is difficult, so I haven't tried for some days. But I have been following some of the news from the General Synod of the Church of England, and I must profess myself deeply shocked at the way that Anglo Catholics have been treated there. I feel it behoves me to make some comment.While one accepts that the matters under discussion run deep, there is need for charity at the very least on the part of the victors. I perceive none at all; in fact the losers seem to be treated as people who are not entitled to even their civil rights (their very pension is under threat). Where in all this is the evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit and his gifts and fruits? Love, joy, peace and the rest?Some of my ecumenical colleagues back home are women, and they are fine Christians and good pastoresses (pastrices?). Where have these dreadful people sprung from? When last I heard, the hunger for power and the crushing of the vanquished was not among the qualities our Lord required in his ministers.

It looks like they are not the only ones. It is simply astounding to read in the last day or so that the ordination of women is apparently as serious a crime under canon law as priests who engage in paedophilia.

To come out finally into the light and clarify that sexual abuse of children is such a truly heinous crime is highly commmendable. But which bucolic member(s) of the gerontocracy thought that it would be a good idea to include the issue of women priests in the same revision?

Aside from just being highly offensive and smacking of good old fashioned misogyny, this move further fans the flames of those who would have that the leadership of the Catholic Church is completely out of touch. On this evidence, maybe they are right.

As an erstwhile atheist Chinese dictator once said, "women hold up half the sky". What exactly is that we are apparently so afraid of with women wishing to become priests (or other forms of equality)? This fear is as irrational as the other great modern scourge, racism.

While the inclusion of the impossibility of the ordination of women in the same document as penalties for child abuse is deeply unfortunate and put the Vatican's press office into a difficult situation, surely people now realize that these are definitions in Canon Law, not moral judgments.

While I wish they had not appeared together, many are relieved that a canonical decision has been made about the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. It won't stop agitators agitating but it demonstrates loud and clear that the matter is settled.

It is shameful that Anglo-Catholics are being treated as they are in their parent body, especially when the Church of England owes so much to the Oxford Movement and its pastoral and cultural legacy. But I hope that the canonical clarification will prove beyond dispute that the Anglo-Catholics were right to oppose the ordination of women and their true home awaits them.

Even in these ecumenical days you cannot equate what the Catholic Church means by ordination and what other churches mean by 'ordination'. They're not the same thing - and no denomination would say so. The 'rules' of the Catholic Church apply to Catholics. This has absolutely no bearing at all on the CofE. Bad timing - true. But, actually, totally irrelevant to the CofE or any other denomination other than Catholic.

Well, Andrew, all the rado and television media made it quite clear that this was a canonical matter, and so did much of the press commentary. Whether the public at large understood the distinction is another matter, but the educated among them would have done. Hence, no serious outcry.

Once something is legislated in Canon Law matters are settled and, as far as the ordination of women in the Catholic Church is concerned, the subject is concluded. No matter what reaction from those who seek female ordination, it is now a closed question. Agitation will continue, make no bones about it, but it will be a waste of time, as it was from the beginning.

Surely women's suffrage was formally made law in the early-c20? Are there plans to withdraw it? What have suffragettes go to do with the ordination of women? No woman has a right to be ordained, nor do men, but they do have a right to vote. It is entirely at the Church's disposal in the person of the local bishop to decide who should be ordained. This is not a matter of rights, still less of equal opportunity.

Father, I'm sorry to be off a topic that I follow but do not comment upon. I'm afraid I've tagged you for Mac's current prayer meme. these things can be a bit of a pain but at the moment I do think it's good if we try and stick together.